(At the time of going to press no title generally acceptable to the editorial committee was found. Suggestions welcomed). CONTENT S
DRAWING : WOMAN THE WALL
FIVE POEMS
TWO POEMS POEM , - Alex Natan -C. J Couch - N. J. Boyle - C. R. Baron - Tustian - C. R. Baron - Tustian - P. Preece - David Hall - Ian Bartlett - Bryan Dickson
EDITORIAL
"This Here" is the successor to the Contributions section of the late "Vigornian" The chronicle of events is now in other hands. The freedom which this splitting of activities allows to the editors of "This Here", entails - to put it in high moral termsresponsibility. The over-riding responsibility for us, as we see it, is that of holding the door open to the expression of all currents of opinion within the school, from whatever source they may spring
Now this is not so easy as it may sound Certain of the opinions expressed in "This Here" may be regarded by some as calculated to produce annoyance in high places. Apparently one is at perfect liberty to liken the majority of the school to the lower forms of pond life - as the editorial of the 195 9-60 "Vigornian" did - so long as no names are mentioned as no corns trodden.upon. The kick is fair play, evidently when delivered to the thin air of vague generalizations, but foul when aimed at the backside of reality.
Many of the articles in past issues of the "Vigornian" have been regarded as "pseudo" - as insincere in one way or another The accusation of insincerity has always been levelled at those who express opinions that come uncomfortably near to revealing some unpalatable truth. Besides, since contributors are not paid for articles and often have to overcame considerable inhibititions within and without before publishing them, one can only conclude that they must have some reasonably sincere motive for expressing their opinions in print.
The editors of "This Here" are therefore prepared to accept articles of opinion, short stories, poems, reviews - anything, in'fact, that members of the school - and not only senior members - are prepared to contribute and discuss at the weekly editorial meetings. No "stylistic merit", no high intellectual standard is required. All that is required of contributors is that they shall have the will to say something original and the energy to put pen to paper to say it.
N.Havely
THOUGHTS FOR TOMORROW
There is a wind of distinct change blowing across College Green. Our entrenched 'establishment' takes metaphorically to the bottle to fortify itself for the defence of barricades, which are quietly crumbling away under its feet of clay. We already had a whiff of wholesome reforms, which however fall decidedly short of the millenium. It is certainly encouraging to notice the Headmaster excitingly 'babbling of green fields'. One is inclined to wish him a speedy arrival in those lush meadows, which would enable him to legislate from a still more enlightened position. In spite of opening some dormer windows much cobweb of stale, meaningless tradition and musty dust is still laying too thickly about instead of speeding up its overdue self-immolatioa
I believe I have rendered 'the State some service' to be permitted donning the toga of a Senatorial scavenger. I certainly intend to continue treading on the corns of some acolytes of St. Arnold of Rugby, who, while hero-worshipping a meaningless past, fail to observe the transmutation of their shrine to a gargoyled facade, noweven stripped of the magic power of a taboo. In these quarters one will shrug one's shoulders and whisper with the knowing smiles of augurs suffering from communal mental biliousness: "Of course, my dear, what else could you expect! He just remains a b f ! " Sure, sure, I have not been put through the mill of a Public School. Instead I have received an adequate education, which has equipped me with powerful binoculars toview the paedagogic landscape from a detached point permitting me a wider horizon than a minor Public School dares to advertise in any scholastic handbook. 1 am neither 'engage" nor biased and still enjoy the exciting aspects of educational experiment. It is widely held that the cardinal sin of many Public Schools is mirrored in the smug, distorted image of their pretence to represent a microcosm of the world at large. Too many Public Schools are severed from the stream of national awareness to adapt themselves voluntarily to the changing social structure and to the diminishing stature of the nation in the world. It is certainly no longer our duty to churn out Empire builders, leaders of Men knowing how to deal with lesser breeds, or muscular Christians, members of the 'Club of well-educated Agnostics', always knowing how to kick a ball in the right quarters of an old school escutcheon. Instead it has become our foremost duty to condition young people, wise beyond their age and often beyond the comprehension of their elders, for a highly competitive world, where only mental alertness and intellectual ability will guarantee some sort of revival in a country, which might easily become the future burden of the Black Man, if he should make a take-over bid in distant times. Therefore a responsible school master should always look ahead,, never dally with the present or lose himself in the emotional tribal rites of a past, which, in retrospect, glitter as glorious self-deception. Out of this conviction I feel the time has come to tilt against some - only apparently - unassailable ramparts of our scholastic 'establishment'.
I believe in a boarding education for the right type of boy. Since we, however, take in boys irrespective of their fitness for this form of education, a boarding housemaster should diligently serve his boys to prevent the amount of irremediable psychological damage done to them, a very weighty argument of those who want to abolish the Public Schools This uneasy situation explains certainly the reluctance of so many 'Old Boys' ever to see us again.' If one starts from the premiss that a boarding house is intended to play a vital part in moulding an adolescent, his housemaster is certainly no longer expected to act merely as a janitor of dangerous captives. It is certainly a weighty argument against the boarding schools when it is asserted that the interpretation of the functions of a housemaster demands a different, a totally different approach than before the war It sounded perfectly intelligible in the past that a housemaster should try to mould his boys after his own image The result, as Sir Harold Nicholson recently pointed out, was "the comparative lack of intellectual energy possessed by the British schoolboy, and his total lack of compassion".
This conception is broken to fragmentation. To brainwash a boy instead is no substitute but only a tribute which narrowmindedness pays to ignorance. The persecution of any intellectual boy must cease because it has become intolerable to conform with any social outlook. Who will matter now and in future in Britain will be exclusively those, who have been taught to think and are temperamentally able to think correctly It is therefore simply impossible that moral dogma should ever prevail at the expense of enlightenment. Consequentially it seems necessary to overhaul all boarding house rules and to bring them in line with school rules, of which, according to the Headmaster, only a minimum should be tolerated. It also means an insult to any intelligent man to notice occasionally that boys are barred from promotion within the school hierarchy, because they play not hard enough, dislike the CCF., march from Aldermaston, but otherwise behave as highly reliable and responsible citizens
Fagging and house caning still occur as a reminder that the immediate postsimian days are still with us A boarding house has ceased to be the playing ground of amateurs who have nothing to lose because they invariably used to win The boot is now on the other leg while the whimsical or prejudiced 'Mr. Chips' is no longer a feature of endearing novels for well-brought up ladies of Barchester vintage. It is also my considered opinion that the choice of house - and school monitors should no longer be left to the discretion of those who, ex officio, are credited with higher wisdom in promoting boys up the ladder of the 'establishment'. I have observed too many 'gaffes' to feel always assured that the right type of boy has been promoted Boys should be elected by their fellow-boys who usually display a very discerning understanding for their contemporaries. Of course, the Headmaster must retain the right to veto any boy for reasons then best left to himself. I am sure he possesses the same persuasive touch which made it possible for Disraeli to convert his sovereign to enlightened ideas.
The balance between intellectual and physical activities has not been re-adjusted - if my historical memory does not deceive me - since shortly after the battle of
Isandhlwana. I am not quite ignorant of the benefits and demands of sport. But it is my opinion that too much pressure is put on our sporting elite considering the time spent on reaching sport venues or wasted on replaying the game in the dressing room or studies. With the increase of competition, not only for academic admission but cotnmensurably for the better paid jobs in commerce, industry and civil services, no boy can really afford to waste two hours almost every day chasing or hitting a ball. To settle down to a strenuous work of an evening must be well-nigh impossible. Greater common sense and far greater respect for the intellectual demands of our time are necessary to strike a happier balance even if 'it is not done, chaps!! '
The advocates of the CCF. have suffered their Cannae (viz. classic dictionary). The Headmaster has foreshadowed major changes to come into force in September. I am sure that those boys who are keen on seacraft or aircraft will get enough time for these voluntary pastimes. I only hope that not too many delaying rear-guard actions will have to be fought. It has been suggested that certain new youth organisations might be suitable to 'form character' and to train 'leaders of men'. It was the Fascist technique to indoctrinate the elite of its youth with blind obedience towards their superiors in social rank. I do not feel too easy in recommending these organisations as a substitute for the CCF. I remember verywell the verdict ofthe Nuremberg Tribunal which ruled unmistakably that blind obedience which killed personal responsibility and the dignity of Man, led to the worst crimes in History. In times like ours where life has become a very risky adventure, it should not be necessary for our boys to develop adventurous instincts only when ordered from above. In a country which is so liable to lose still more of its characteristics as Great Britain is bound to do, it becomes simply middle-class snobbery to perform deeds of sheer blind obedience. Those who do will become the mute, ruthlessly efficient and guilty tools of any managerial dictatorship of the future. The history of Great Britain can be told in hecatombs of sacrifices for the survival of complete freedom of speech and thought. Is it mere coincidence that just those 'leaders of men' who have apparently gone through the treadmill of the CCF. seem to be unable to manage our society any longer while those who have never savoured the sweat and polish of the CCF. seem to be destined to call out their men every other day for an illegal strike? They rely on the dynamic persuasion of the word and can dispense with any appeal to a 'noble and gallant character'. It seems somehow incongruous that boys who have learned the epic of Non-Conformisms - the epitome of English history - should be subjected to any senseless drill of unintelligent Conformism.
To sum up; the most urgent problem of a genuine school refojrn is the creation of more time and space for out-of-class activities of a voluntary nature and the indoctrination of staff and boys with the unshakeable conviction that all aims of education are still directed towards a maximum of learning and knowing how to master life To add another contribution to the exposure of patent ills: let us abolish Saturday mornings The omitted.school hours can be made up on Wednesday afternoons, or still better, if school v/ould start at 8.45 a.m I fear however that our High Tories would have to get rid of the bugbear that boarders would, if not properly super-
vised, indulge in all improper virtues and vices, usually reserved to the rest of Mankind, I have thought aloud why I find it nigh impossible to conform with the manifestations of an anti-diluvian attitude, raising its Gorgon head in musty nooks and petrified crannies. Will those who cast the first stones on me, remember please that the History room has become a happy hunting ground for Non-Conformists who discover there their genuine selves They are aware that part of the school is still suffering from the hangover after Mafeking night.
Alex Natan
MOTHER IN AUTUMN
The rain has come, Flurrying. The wind has come Bustling.
The leaves have come, Scurrying Red-yellow withering. But the red, red of heart's blood Loving Dies not. Of leaves the autumn comes But of love's Life not.
The autumn world is here But spring-time and hot summer saw you too. Brashly
In an unlettered world Of scarcely peopled plains They saw you. Naive
In a panting Ephesus, Many-breasted, They adored. But cold age, A grey world, Which once saw veils sees cobwebs; Creaking Kneels suppliant
For what it has not
But - poor consolation! - knows The mystery That knew not They that had.
In the ashes of soul It implores you Life-bestowing Mother.
(There is an Ephesian statue of Diana in her capacity of Mother Goddess, the front of whose trunk is entirely covered with breasts). „ goyje
THE SICK-ROOM
Russet and gilt are the stubble of farmer's Acres of jagged blades cruelty
Near the head swollen; far stretch the white wings to Round rim to death expressly.
O, bubbled brass bed-knob.
O, golden dew-drop quivering on the withering blade under Sun-headache splintering. .
Gold the blue windows and gold the pink faces; Nature, in pain mirrored changelessly.
Tremble, peach tear; on branch shrivel! Fall, left to Rot, moulder, no embalmers.
This was written in response to a challenge (from Mr.Dilks) to write a poem about bed-knobs - here a bed-knob in a sick-room, with the ideas and images which it impresses upon me, together with the metre and the rhyme, condensed into and arranged about the centre verse,
N.Boyle
INWARD BOUND
There were just about a hundred of us. Standing, talking. Feeling lost. "Tops off and stand in patrols! " "Where's Slingsby? Ah, there! " "Go third." "Why?" "You should come there. " Oh well.
The start sounds. Towards the "George." Too many on this small road! Someone's over, poor devil... turn left... God, how did I get this far back? Must speed up... Past several chaps. Lengthen stride!... Lord, this hill! They said keep going: not too bad at pres... still passing a few. Roy Pomfret. Must stay ahead of him. This damn wind... Cattle grid. Over or round? Mustn't twist my ankle. Round... what! Jeremiah passing me Can't do with this Come on! Faster! Past Will.. Hell! Must be about a quarter mile down already Who's that up top? Can't tell.. Streuth, right up there Passing some chaps walking Getting slower - God this wind! When do they turn off?... slower... Passed by two or three. Keep up... They're walkingkeep going - Why, it's not much faster - far better to - rats! much more exhaustingmaybe, but... keep running.., 'nother hundred yards, then road starts levelling... God, I'm going groggy! - run straight - my feet won't go straight. Must walk - don't be a damn fool - Must! Folks behind '11say I 'm wandering. They can see me. It's the wind. Not my fault. Going to - No! - I'm going to fai... walk... Someone passes... If they can.do it, so... run floppily after... They've stopped... keep going.. Thank God, the turn.. Gardener standing there.. 47, 48.. Halfway down; come on, man!^ of way in length, \ in effort.. Funny! I'm fagged already
This marsh.. haven't enough strength.. walk.. "Come on." Le's! If I can't beat that mother's , "Sure".. run.. mustn't fall Don't want to fall I'll hurt myself I 've a long way to fall I couldn'.. walk.. that fat copper Frost He can't beat me... no energy. No will-power... run... horrible, slimy mess. Noway round it.
Stony track - God, I'm tired - rough... stones loose, too... mustn't fall... faster - not safe - faster... John Snowdon's going too fast after his warning aboutis that an excuse?... and the warden; must beat him, at any rate... will this thing never - Peter Aitken - doesn't look like "submarine"... stile and gate.... Go on, over - What do you take me for?... leave gate open for next man... past that Chink, anyway.. ..come on, faster... still down hill... past warden... flat now. Do your best! ghastly mud patch.. mustn't go through - go on - be quicker to go round.. Ah, river at last, nearly there. reasonably smooth now - regulate speed.. my mouth.. that Chink.. my eyes.. stay with him.. me
Snowdon's stopped for a chat.-.. right into river... God! ... "Come on! " - to me... why me?... can't go faster... just up to my knees... huge stones... almost over. Up... he's gained five yards... must make it up... can't... faster! ... on road now... three hundred... harder, harder, harder! faces...
How can a long distance runner have any other thoughts?
C.R.Baron
POEM SEQUENCE
Habbakuk ii 2
"And the Lord answered me and said, "Write the vision, and make it plain upon tables, that he may run that readeth it."
I. Explanation.
IV Question
When
Thunder and Lightning camesome said it was divine wrath... Physicists thought up complicated explanations But I knew that He was trying to light His gas fire
Whenever poets see snow.
They go into raptures. But I have been given to understand that four out of five people have dandruff All I see is God combing His hair
Tall, solid, rises the Cathedral Tower
Finger pointed to the sky accusingly
Denouncing God
The stars, God's Christmas decorations Shine in the heaven above.
When Christ and Christmas are no more, Surely they will flicker and go out?
VII. Sea.
VIII.
IX.
Almostbut not quiteI remember... what was it? Had I smelt heard seen touched this thing before - or - not?
Somewhere in my memory a door is nailed shut. The marks of the hammer remain.
It's quite easy really to write this kind of poem ? Just string together any old jumble of words.
Like a huge, salty bath
The sea spreads out its soggy hands, and claws against the soil When the tide comes in, Has God stepped into His bath?
Rain fell, unceasing Spattering against the wormed soil, Celestial fire sprinklers gone mad, Drowning the earth
See the little priest, Held by the leash around his neck Yapping despairingly at passers-by
C.R.Baron
THE WALL
She had worked for the doctor and his wife for a long time. Each day she came from Potsdam into the British sector, and to the family she seemed almost to be a permanent fixture. She was not young; her hair was white but she was still able to manage in the house, and look after the children, to whom she had become very attached. The doctor had bought her a flat in one of the huge blocks in the British sector and over the recent months, she had brought her furniture and belongings over one by one, shopping bag by shopping bagful. • All her belongings, mostly items of little material value but of inestimable sentimental worth, came across from her room in a Potsdam street
She planned to move out finally on the sixteenth of August, a Wednesday. Everything was ready, and it was with a feeling of unfamiliar excitement that she crossed back into the Eastern sector for what was the last time, on the Tuesday evening. She still had her old broken crockery, a little food, a small stove, and an armchair which was too big to take with her.
She slept little that night.
In the morning, she went to the familiar crossing-point, to be met by a group of Russian soldiery, which made her scurry away from the Sough concrete wall, and the mud-spattered tank. She rushed to another gate, and then another, to find that each one was guarded, and there was no escape. She wandered back to her old home and slumped into the chair. Through a haze she saw the patches on the wall left by removal of her pictures. Beneath her feet, devoid of carpet, the floor stared up at her
A little later, a small group of Volkspolizei might have been seen escorting an insane woman from a dingy house in a dingy backstreet in Potsdam, into a dark closed car which drove off to - anywhere.
This story is true - it happened at least once, it may have happened many times, in essence. Graphically and pitifully, it shows how the desires of the individual are subordinated to disinterested politics.
P.Preece
FIVE POEMS
A Fish in a Bowl
He yelled across the glass and the dark that stood between our minds a sheet of difference
He looked through, gazed through, opening his mouth expressing round eyes into a yell and I heard.
I heard through mind a yell of fear fearing where apathy kills and inertia silence sitting in a bowl.
Poem .... inspired by "The Dharma Bums"
It's a day beginningless, a time timeless, a place where nothing else matters but the love in the trees, the rocks, the streams the love where love is the god.
Dim, blurred, deep in the sound,
A smear of vibration
Beating of life, Throbbing the horizon out of focus,
The ceiling, the walls, the floor of the world, That small, obscure, half-buried life
Yet living, present, striking life
Thrust forward into a picture of mind, In brilliant colours smeared to canvas, Thumping all the time in purple
The black and orange floors of life, Exhaling into the universe
The impression of a world into an empty space.
I went to open the window to talk to a friend talking living to live how did they expect me to live inside my own mind welling up thinking not to express communicate they trod on my body that loved and spat in my face I spat on the floor there was nothing else to spit on and I had no more hate only love I went to open the window but they had broken the window and filled it with bricks they had stopped the vein of my love a clot of blood I withered and died on the floor I had spat on
The dust drifted through thick as it settled unnoticed my dust-coloured coat and coloured my face hard, cruel blue-gray»
I walked on, stumbled and noticed, the dust choking my feet I fell helpless to nothingness while the dust floated continually
Suddenly I woke next morning or next year and found the dust had been trying to bury me had been trying to chew my mind into a convert.
1 ran - scared the dust (disbelieving astonishment) scattered and fled to load another faded colour„
David Hall
Just such a one as this was lost.
Just such a one as this there was who needed me and I cared deeply.
My crime was great far greater than his whom all condemn. He sold a man to save the world and hanged himself when all was lost I would not raise a self-respect but watched him crucify and there was no rejection. ^ g^let i
Alone
I am alone the people stand and stare„ Talk man they say "Speak" No-one should be alone to think of anything but silver spoons and Rupert Brooke This loneness is the only weapon for my mind. Surely, they do not want my mind they do not want it but demand it with the ceaseless chatter of a timeless age Which draws me out and leaves me open ready for the next attack. I want my peace I want my lonely mind it is the only thing 1 have leave me that
Ian Bartlett
FREEDOM TO LIVE — BOYS, BEATITUDES AND BOFFINS
A school is a community of people, some younger, some older, who have come together for a certain definite purpose. Men's views of education vary. Some will want to use schools for political or religious .ends: to make good Communists or good Roman Catholics, for example Some will want to give a social elite the necessary know-how to govern. Some - an increasing number perhaps - will want to give boys and girls enough book learning or techinical expertise to enable them to obtain the appropriate credits in G.C.E. necessary to the landing of a good (remunerative) job after leaving school.
Ruskin said; "You do not educate a man by telling him what he knows not but by making him what he was not." True education consists not simply in imparting facts, nor in teaching how the things learned in the class room can be arranged in meaningful patterns. True education consists in helping young people to become more and more themselves. All their latent powers of body have to be developed by right feeding and medical attention, right recreation, right physical education. They must be given the sort of environment which will enable them to develop and expand their love for the beautiful in music or art or nature. And they must be given the kind of environment where moral sensitivity will be quickened and where, as far as possible, they will want to be good.
But of course immediately education ceases to be thought of as merely training for technicians and becomes associated with values, then the fat is in the fire indeed. For a well conducted ward-room does not allow the discussion of religion or politics; such matter is too controversial.
In fact, so impressionable is the child mind that his teacher's pre-suppositions will affect him even if the teacher tries hard not to let his pupils gather what these are. A slovenly teacher will produce a slovenly class and enthusiastic one will engender enthusiasm. Christian or Communist or Humanist Agnostic he will inevitably affect the views of his pupils and the more attractive the personality of the teacher, the better his teaching technique, the deeper and more lasting this influence will be
So, willy nilly, educationists are concerned with values. There is no such thing as neutral education. What is the purpose of the school community: To be a learning shop or to be a true community - the sharing of a common life, a place where ail, younger and older, superior and inferior are learning from one another in the process of living together? Or ought we to aim at producing a good crop of scientists or a sound proportion of well instructed conservatives? What is to be the relation between boys and masters? Are the latter to be little dictators whose commands are obeyed on
threat of punishment? Or is the school, perhaps, to be administered by an elected council of pupils and staff under the chairmanship of the headmaster? What school rules ought there to be and with what sanctions are they to be enforced? By lines, by beating, by the awarding of unpleasant tasks useful to the community or by attempting to make the punishment fit the crime? What offences are going to be regarded as really serious? Drinking? (At the King's School alcoholic drinks appear at house suppers even though they are, in fact, mild ones). Smoking? (Some schools have smokerooms for senior boys) Lying? (At Gresham's School I am told, a boy can be expelled for lying. Elsewhere they appear to get away with it!)
On all. these questions there will be differences of opinion. Twenty experts might (just) agree on the best way to teach Pythagoras' Theorem Hardly two people would agree exactly on the right way to help a boy to develop to the full his powers of personality.
So we have to face the fact from the start that all education will be from one point of view 'biased' Education cannot wait until all the educators agree as to what it is for. A Communist might be biased in thinking that a boy ought to be brought up to be a good Marxist even at the expense of what I call truth. I, on the other hand, might try to make my teaching as unbiased and objective as possible Yet he will think me hopelessly partial - western, bourgeois reactionary.
In one respect, however, the Communist is right. Communist educators believe that the values of Communist society are right values and that these must be passed on to the younger generation which they are trying to educate. The post-Christian West, on the other hand, does not believe in itself. It has no generally accepted philosophy, no widely held standards of right and wrong It either attempts to make all education "secular" - an imparting of facts without the passing on of a philosophy of life - or (as in England) - it seeks to pass on to the young the no longer believed in though once firmly held philosophy of a vanished culture, namely Christianity So we find a daily act of worship and a weekly Scripture period imposed by statute on the schools, without any context of religion as being the motivating philosophy of a way of life And let us not suppose that the schools are alone in such a dilemma Does not a largely agnostic Parliament begin its day with morning prayers, do not the courts demand an oath taken on the Bible and the Services accord junior officer's rank to Her Majesty's Chaplains?
So to the headmaster it falls, in co-operation with his governors, his staff, the parents and the boys, to try and build a community which shall attempt to impart to his pupils the vision of a way of life in which he himself believes He may be tied somewhat by tradition, and the older the school the more difficult it will be to change things which he thinks need changing, to substitute new ideals for old. But presumably he will not have joined a school unless the Governors are satisfied that he is in sympathy with its basic ethos (the same will be true of assistant masters) and if he is wise he will make haste slowly, seeking the co-operation both of masters and of boys
before putting too many strange new ideas into practice, realising that the past even if it has many faults and prejudices is probably a very precious thing, not lightly to be discarded or thrust aside.
Here, I suppose, this article ought to take the form of a series of symposia - a series of sketches for a school written in a spirit of conviction by a Humanist, a Marxist, a Moslem, a Christian, a follower of Rudolph Steiner. For since education is concerned with people and how we treat people, how we seek to educate them will depend upon our beliefs about man, who he is, what is his destiny and his worth. A Marxist and a Buddhist just simply will not treat a boy or a girl in the same way. And it was not strange, or even narrow, of one headmaster I knew to say, "I only once appointed someone who was not a professing Christian to my staff, and even then I afterwards regretted it." How can masters act as a fully harmonious team when one would produce Free-thinkers, another Buddhists, another followers of Jesus Christ and yet another couldn't care less?
Nor should it be thought surprising that positive views about morals, religion, about the value of art and music or the open-air life, about the importance of service to the community, should be held by school authorities. On the question: Is each boy and each master in the school a child of God, a brother for whom Christ died, there can be no compromise Either the statement is true or it isn't Christ or Marx or Mohammed may or may not have been right. But only the more half-baked members of society will expect men to hold to their own particular creeds without the conviction that they are worth passing on. To say, for example, "Well I"m a Christian, of course, but you must decide for yourself and in the end it doesn't much matter what a chap believes in does it, we're all pretty decent people at heart and are surely all going roughly the same way?"
What then are the principles which will operate in the running of a Christian school? First a Christian is committed to loving God with all his heart and mind and soul and strength. A Christian school is a community where feelings have a place. The headmaster and the masters of such a school will be warm-hearted people recognising that feelings have an important (though not an exclusive) part to play in all relationships
It will be a place where the intellect is honoured, where young and old are concerned, not for the passing on of ancient shibboleths but for the rediscovery in every age of living truth There will be a common background to all the subjects taught for all knowledge comes from God To learn equally Geography, or English Literature or Chemistry tells us something about the God whom we try to love with all our mind.
At the centre of the school's life will be its chapel. For loving God with one's soul involves worshipping Him. It must be a beautiful chapel - perhaps the boys will be helping to build or to beautify it themselves - for ugliness in a chapel would be telling a lie about God. The kind of services will depend a good deal on the particular school community. For loving God with one's soul involves sincerity and it is
impossible for some to worship God by using incense just as it is impossible for others to worship Him by the constant repetition of what seems to them a lifeless creed.
Boys and masters will be expected to be keen, enthusiastic people. One does not show love for God (or for anyone else) by botched handicrafts, carelessly written prep., or the persistent evasion of net practice. We have to love God with all our strength.
And in the Christian Community, too, we are to love our neighbour as ourself. "Eternal God" we pray, "in whose perfect Kingdom no sword is drawn but the sword of righteousness and no strength known but the strength of love." This regard for others will mean, I think, that boys as well as masters will have some say about what school rules should be. And the further a boy gets up the school the more will his opinion count in such matters. But, in the end, it will be recognised that the senior brethren in a community have rights and responsibilities not accorded to junior ones and that this recognition is part of loving a senior brother as yourself. Again the responsibility of older members of the community for younger ones may well involve the infliction of punishment. Love is not necessarily consonant with letting fools or villains "getaway with it." On the other hand there will be no false distinctions between teacher and taught. The one who is master of all must also be the servant of all. And no man is fit to be a school-master unless he feels a certain humility in the presence of those who in spite of all his defects and weaknesses, he nevertheless still desires to serve. No arrogance, no false pride can be in accord with the character of the servant of Christ.
And lastly there is the difficult question of freedom. Nobody but an anarchist believes in complete "freedom". And freedom of this sort is only freedom to become enslaved. Freedom to take drugs, to kick your little brother in the teeth or never to do your mathematics prep., is a sort of freedom a Christian society cannot allow. We shall sell heroin only under strictest licence, we forbid crimes "against the person", we insist that prep, be done - - - or else. On the other hand moral responsibility can only grow as the developing child is given freedom to exercise it. There comes a point, somewhere, where we have to be left free to do our prep or not, to smoke and drink or not, to go to church or not. To be brought up to have no religious views at all is not to be left free. We do not in any case leave young people free in (say) mathematics by letting them find out the best ways of doing every calculation for themselves The process would be far too slow and uncertain and none but the very brightest would ever pass their G.C.E On the contrary, we say this is the best method (and perhaps we tell them why). Do things this way. So in religion (and we have no more doubt about Jesus Christ than we do about Pythagoras' Theorem, though the kind of faith we have in Him is different) we say, live life this way. By this way alone can you be trulyefficient and happy, the most fulfilled person that you can possibly be.
Just as some boys who come up the school (not the best) will never be convinced that they are missing something by not reading poetry (or science) so there will be some who will never be convinced about religion This 1think, is to be expected and accepted At some point in their school career (just as they may be given private
reading periods or spared the necessity of submitting formal prep ) these individuals must be set free from compulsory chapel attendance. They will attend church on corporate school occasions like Founder's Day as they will in later life attend funerals or masonic or regimental services.
Perhaps it ought to be able to be said of any boy in any school (as the prospectus of one school does say about its scholars): "If X offers a place to a boy he will become a member of a — community in which intelligence is presupposed and a sense of service expected. — Due to a humane tradition of long standing, each boy is able to benefit from an environment in which he can find security, tolerance and friendliness and thus achieve the best that is in him — He will be treated as a person unique i himself — He will be valued for his fellowship and for the spirit that is in him.'.'
Bryan Dickson
It was early and I ran.
A bicycle passed me and its lights were still on but the rider had no light
And he looked and saw not the purpose and thought me mad.
The fog passed over me - and around me and tried to lose my heart and thoughts and way in its inconstant mire when, seeing I responded not, it thought me mad.
And still I ran but still in thought and saw a rabbit playing on the grass. And it was glad without its thoughts and had no way to go.
And I stopped, for my thoughts ended there and saw what I had missed by thinking
